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Recently, I have the privilege of being able to speak to the Management Information System Team, a student club here within the Saunders College.  While I’ve spoken in classrooms before as part of a guest lecture, this audience was more intimate and had actually invited me. To me, that meant they were actively seeking out specific information and my standard lecture just wouldn’t do.  My content had to be better.

It very much reminded me of the concept of SEO on the whole.  Content is king. And these students are actively searching for the content. Hopefully I can help them find what they were searching for.  No one left after the first slide, so that was a good start, right?

I love speaking in front of students and having the opportunity to impart a more practical manner. I take concepts learned in the class and try to bring a more applied meaning. This was most apparent after the hour-long talk was over. Not a single student got up to leave and all of them stayed another 90 minutes asking questions. We even got into actual case studies of current sites and their own sites. It was amazing to me how many are Webmasters for their parents’ companies and needed this information.

So my biggest take-away was SEO is out there.  People know they need SEO and are turning anywhere to get it.  Ten years ago, when I owned my Web development company and tried to sell Web development services to small business owners, I had to fight the mentality of “oh my nephew can do that.” Now, it seems that sure, the nephew (or son, or some kid, …) has built their site and they continue to say to these same people: “how can I be found by Google?” For that, these “kids” are seeking out in the right direction.

I’m honored to have been able to be there for them.

Not entirely Google properties, here’s the list of fun, 2010 April Fools Internet Follies I’ve discovered this morning. If you missed my Google April Fools gags from last night, check them out again. Read more

And so it begins. Creativity at its best as Google unrolls their various silly services. As April Fool’s Day is my second favorite holiday of the year and I look forward to the Internet follies every year.

Google was a little lighter than usual last year, with their CADIE service. It wasn’t as funny as past faux services, but it was consistent and across at least 13 of its US properties.

What do they have in store this year? I’m surfing Google properties East of the GMT looking for the goodies. This year promises to be real good, with Google capitalizing on Android devices. Read more

Some Bay Area residents woke up yesterday to a 4.1 magnitude earthquake.  According to various reports, Google had integrated that news in its search results somewhere between  two minutes to 10 minutes afterward.  Although Google said their Bay Area data centers had the feed from the US Geological Survey Feed in less than two minutes, most people saw the real-time results in about six minutes. Read more

Well, there’s no limits to the lengths Google will go to collect the world’s data.  Monday, Google introduced Goo.gl, the URL shortener.  The limiting factor, however, is that you must use Google’s Toolbar to do so. The toolbar icon allows you to share with nearly every social service you ever heard of.

Is this Google’s way of getting around obscure, shortened URLs?  Does this mean that since Google will now own shortened URLs, they will auto-index the correct full URL and continue to crawl more content?  Smart!

What’s next? Is there no limit to what Google will offer for free? Is there any limit to the information that Google can search and index?

The Official Google Blog reports today new types of search ads. Citing that they are committed to “giving you the information you want,” Google is unrolling sponsored links that include many different “extras.”  The blog shows details on ads with extra links to the site advertising, maps and videos embedded within the ad space, and even specific products from an advertiser.

Google is also unrolling a feature that allows users to “Compare Sponsored Results.”  That’s right, you want to comparison shop the AdWords customers?  – Google’s got a page for that!  You too can view all of Google’s advertisers at the same time and comparison shop for just the right Winter coat or perhaps the best loan rate.  Since you are viewing ads, are those more impressions for which advertisers are going to be charged?

Keep in mind, this is Google’s second large advertising change this month. Last week, those fine folks at Search Engine Land reported Google was experimenting with paid inclusion.

Through it all, Google claims they will “remain loyal” to their “core principle: that getting the right ad to the right person at the right time matters.”  Really. We all thought it had something to do with not doing evil things.

And the business of search keeps on growing…

Well, two weeks in, I still can’t say enough about it and I still keep finding new features.  Is it as good as an iPhone?  I don’t know, I don’t care.  Does it make calls, keep my schedules in sync, organize all my emails, appointments and tasks?  Yes.

Is it easy to type on? Yes.

Are all the cool apps that the iPhone have on it?  Well, it depends on your definition of “cool,” I guess, but yes.  The Weather Channel app is exactly the same.  Many things the iPhone needs an “app” for are built-in functions, from what I’ve read.

Everyone has different needs.  This device exceeds all mine and I still find cool and new uses for it. Read more

Engadget is reporting a phone conference scheduled between Lowell McAdam and Eric Schmidt , respective CEOs of Verizon and Google. While no facts have been confirmed, the rumors abound that an Android-based phone will be discussed.

Frankly, Verizon is long overdue for the “next cool gadget phone.”  AT&T has had the iPhone locked up and all the other Android phones have all been T-Mobile. With all the brouhaha over Chrome OS and the rumors that it would be mobile-device bound, that would be a pleasant surprise.  AndroidAndMe.com is already reporting a Verizon-bound Android 2.0 phone, the Motorola Tao, will be launched on December 1.

We’ll (hopefully) know more this afternoon.

CNET News is reporting Google services outages World-Wide .

Granted, this is not a normal occurrence, and (you would think) this would most certainly not become a regular issue.  However, I think the quote from Twitter user @Tadiera says it all:

“The Internet dies with out Google. Can’t get to my bank Web site because it’s waiting on ‘google-analytics.com.’ This is made of lame,” said Twitter user Tadiera.

I repeat what I wrote earlier this week: If you’re a large company, you do not want to rely on Google Analytics.  At this point, the little guy is now suffering.

From @Google on twitter:

We’re aware some users are having trouble accessing some Google services. We’re looking into it, and we’ll update everyone soon.

C’est la vie.

Updated: 3:30 PM

Oops, we’re sorry, air traffic control rerouted our flight.  That’s the answer from Google about their outage.

One of the cool things about Google is their laid-back attitudes.  It’s what makes them, Google. It’s also what makes them successful and desireable to work for. But 14% of Google’s user base is a lot of affected users.  On the search or mail front, that’s annoying and inconvenient.  On the analytics side, it’s lost data that can never come back.  In some cases, it’s your site’s pages that were never served which is potentially loss of business and certainly inconvenience for your customers and potential-customers.

Google’s non-technical answer is appropriate. However, the short reponse without reassuring their customers it won’t happen again is as tasteless as an airline meal.

The world loves Google, right?  How can you complain with free Web search, free email, free blogs, free picture sharing, free video sharing and all the disk space in the world with which to do it?  So when Google released Google Analytics, we all said, “why not?” Read more

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